| Activity | His father was described as a forgeman and chainmaker. Richard eventually became Managing Director of the firm before venturing into the oil business. His entomological work was carried out in his spare time. Bagnall became interested in natural history at an early age and joined the Vale of Derwent Naturalists Field Club in 1903. In 1905 he submitted several entomological papers to the club, including one on a beetle found in the Gibside area that was a new addition to the British fauna. He had collected it while on a walk with Professor Hudson-Beare of Edinburgh. Bagnall gave a lecture on the beetle at a meeting of the Royal Physical Society in Edinburgh, and another at a meeting of the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne. He joined the latter society in 1905, and over a period of years he published many papers on the entomology of north-east England. In
1912 he bacame Chairman of the Field Meetings Committee of the Society, but later that year he moved to the Hope Museum at Oxford, where he was assistant to the curator and special demonstrator to Professor Poulton. Unfortunately, business interests forced him to give up his Oxford appointments in 1914.
In 1915, four leading north-eastern naturalists, including Bagnall and the botanist J.W. Heslop Harrison, decided to launch an independent journal Vasculum was launched, and during its long life it has carried an immense amount of information on every aspect of wildlife, including many records of plant galls and a series of articles on plant galls by Bagnall himself.
There seems to be no history of the study of plant galls in the north prior to 1915. Wingate, writing in the Victoria History of Durham in 1905, gives a long list of the Diptera recorded in the county, but galls were not included. In 1915 Bagnall stated that plant galls were a new field of study for the local entolomologist, and he provided several records. Another list was given by Harrison, and the two men worked together to produce a valuable collection of records of galls in the north- east of England. Between 1915 and 1919, six papers on plant galls appeared in The Vasculum: Galls in General; Books to Consult and Field Hunts; Gall Wasps other than those Affecting Oak, Cecidomyiidae or Gall Midges; Mite Galls (Eriohpyidae); and The Wasp Galls of the British Oak. In June 1917, H. S. Wallace, who had written the first article with Bagnall, published a paper on eelworms.
As well as writing on galls in the north-east, Bagnall supplied the journal with papers of national and international interest: Some Alpine Gall Mites (Eriophyidae); Eelworm Galls; Insects of Black Bryony (Tamus communis); Galls of Tamarisk in England; Some Interesting Saltmarsh or Maritime Gall Mites; and The Gall Wasps and their Allies in Northumberland and Durham all appeared during the 1920's.
Bagnall spent a great deal of his spare time on field outings. In the autumn of 1917 he carried out surveys on the coastal denes in Durham, and at Ryhope, near Seaham, he recorded the first British specimens of the gall of Phanacis centaureae on greater knapweed. He also found Aylax (=Isocolus) rogenhoferi at Ryhope. Bagnall and Harrison also found Phanacis centaureae at Easington Dene, a few miles to the north of Hartlepool. Later in the year they found Rhabdophaga pseudococcus, a species new to the British list. It was on the underside of Salix caprea leaves at Hesleden Dene, a valley closer to Hartlepool.
While on field trips with northern naturalists, Bagnall discovered many other galls. On a trip to Acklington and Felton in Northumberland in 1915 he found eleven gall midges, ten gall mites, the aphid Chermes (=Adelges) abietis, and several psyllids. It was these records that formed the basis of the Bagnall and Harrison catalogues.
In June 1917 Bagnall visited North Berwick and became interested in the galls of Scotland. With Harrison, who had started making records on a visit to Stirlingshire in 1914, he eventually produced a list that was shown to a British Association meeting in Edinburgh. The list was published in the Scottish naturalist in 1932, together with some background information and the locations visited by the authors.
Bagnall's work on plant galls ceased just before 1930, but he still continued to work on other entomological subjects. He published about 300 papers, in over 120 journals, covering national and international subjects. In 1928 Durham University honoured him with the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science. The University Newsletter referred to him as the best entomological field worker in the country, although his habit of describing new species with the aid of a hand lens also earned him the reputation of being an eccentric!
Tring correspondent |